"Mr. Ellacombe brings to his task an enthusiastic love of horticulture, wedded to no inconsiderable practical and theoretical knowledge of it; a mind cultivated by considerable acquaintance with the Greek and Latin classics, and trained for this special subject by a course of extensive reading among the contemporaries of his author: and a capacity for patient and unwearied research, which he has shown by the stores of learning he has drawn from a class of books rarely dipped into by the student--Saxon and Early English herbals and books of leechcraft; the result is a work which is entitled from its worth to a place in every Shakesperian library."--Spectator.